


What Came After

by scribaversutus



Category: Hawkeye (Comics), Marvel (Comics)
Genre: Emotional pain, Gen, Hawkeye #21, Hawkeye 21, Hope, Hospital, Injury, good stuff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-06
Updated: 2015-02-06
Packaged: 2018-03-10 20:06:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,764
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3301853
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scribaversutus/pseuds/scribaversutus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Clint's head was still foggy from the concussion he'd probably received.  Too foggy to understand exactly what was happening here, that was for sure.  Mere moments ago he'd been watching his brother kick ass, and now... what?  Barney was dead?  He refused to accept that.  Couldn't accept it if he wanted to (which he didn't).  Then Lucky showed up, but wasn't Lucky with Kate?  And wasn't Kate in LA?  Aww, head... you better figure this out fast.  Barney still needs you.</p>
            </blockquote>





	What Came After

**Author's Note:**

  * For [skyfallat221b](https://archiveofourown.org/users/skyfallat221b/gifts).



Clint’s eyes widened in disbelief at the sight of the dog sitting at the top of the stairs. His concussed mind, foggy and thick-feeling, struggled to put it all together.

_Barney bleeding… Lucky there… but Lucky was with Kate… wasn’t he? So then…_

_Kate?_

**_Here??_ **

She appeared at the top of the stairs just then, as if his thoughts had summoned her to him. _Do I have superpowers now?_ Clint wondered absentmindedly, a spark of hope landing in his heart. _Maybe those blows to my head finally did something useful._

Turning back to his broken brother, Clint squeezed his eyes shut as tight as he could and thought with all his might, focusing everything he had on Barney.

But when he opened them again, the scene in front of him was unchanged.

“Futz,” he whispered, his voice catching in his throat. Not like he’d expected anything different. What gave him the right to have hope, to expect that anything would change his history?

But now there was a hand on Barney’s neck and then his shoulder, pulling him out of his thoughts, and… a voice? _Oh, right… Kate._

He turned to face her slowly, the words on her lips dancing unrecognized in front of him until he pulled together enough focus to understand a few of them.

“Clint… take down… Barney… stab… needs hospi…”

It was enough. Raising his eyes to hers, he nodded.

Slowly, painfully, fighting against weight of worry he held on his shoulders, Clint laid his brother gently down on the ground as he rose up. Grabbing the wheelchair, he moved it closer and pulled Barney into it. His leg was dragging, hard to stand on. It made everything at least ten times harder, and Clint almost fell before Kate stepped in and helped get Barney settled in the chair.

Tapping him on the shoulder, Kate made the signs for go, down, and van.

_Wait, when did Kate learn sign language?? She never… right. Gotta focus._

Clint nodded and Kate added on a couple more signs which, if he made a couple guesses (she was still new to this, it seemed) probably meant she wanted him to go ahead and that she was going to get Barney down the stairs.

_By herself?? No, more signs… “neighbor… help.” Oh. Good._

Grabbing his bow and quiver and holding Lucky’s collar for support, Clint made it to the first landing and turned around to see how Kate and Deke were managing, breathing a sigh of relief when they seemed to be having no issue with the stairs and were even handling them gently. Turning back around, he kept moving forward.

* * *

By the time the small and worse-for-wear group reached the bottom of the stairs, they were all panting – and Clint was in agony. There had only been a few tracksuits left to deal with (that they’d run into, anyway) but one had managed to land a kick on Clint’s leg and it was NOT happy with him. Fighting off the pain and exhaustion as best he could, Clint limped towards one of the vans abandoned by the tracksuits and opened the doors, rolling himself inside and grabbing the wheelchair as Kate and Deke pushed it in behind him.

“Go, go, go,” he said, and Kate was more than happy to comply, although she took the corners slower than usual (thank god). Holding Barney still as well as he could, Clint stared into his brother’s face and wondered how again how this had happened, how they had reached the roof before him or at all for that matter, how Kate was here, how Barney was right here with him like he had always wanted – but in a way that Clint had never imagined, never dreamed of in his darkest nightmares. His earlier threat tore at him now, the pain they caused worse than any knife or bullet he’d ever encountered. How could he have been so callous, so cruel? Barney had proven on the roof that he was worthy of Clint’s trust again, but now… he might never have a chance to know it.

_Ironic, huh? That’s fate for you…_

Clint could almost hear his brother’s voice saying those words, pulling a twisted smile to his face as he choked back a sob.

“It’s gonna be ok, Barn. You’re gonna be ok.”

* * *

When they reached the hospital and Kate opened the doors, she found Clint half-kneeling, one arm wrapped around his brother and the other tangled in a seatbelt to brace himself as much as possible, his knuckles white around the material. One look at his face, eyes locked onto Barney’s and Kate’s face blanched to match his. Not wasting any time, she clambered in and gently loosened his grip as the hospital staff transferred Barney onto a stretcher and rolled him inside.

Seeing Barney go, Clint lurched after him and half fell out of the van before Kate managed to catch him, her words of comfort falling on deaf ears as he fought to follow his brother. Kate pushed back against him and made him look at her lips, her face intent as she told him that Barney would be alright, that Clint had to get better too, for his brother’s sake, repeating it over and over again until Clint stopped struggling and instead slumped into the wheelchair a nurse had brought out for him. He barely made it into an exam room and onto a stretcher before he lost his fight against the all-too-familiar darkness, sinking into it as one last word slipped off his lips.

**_“Barney…”_ **

* * *

When Clint finally woke up, it happened slowly, the memories of the fight and the roof and of… Barney… trickling back into his mind. When it had all settled back into place he found himself already struggling to sit up, desperate to find Barney. The haze in his head impeded his efforts, but it didn’t prevent them entirely; Kate did that instead, pushing him back down with an expression that shocked him into letting her have her way – she barely ever looked _that_ worried.

So he let her push him back down, stuffing the rising panic in his chest into a box and locking it for the time being. He needed to know what she knew – he had to know.

Noticing his intense focus, Kate asked, “Hands or lips?”

“Lips,” he replied. “They’re faster.”

She nodded and sank into a chair, telling him everything that had happened since they had arrived at the hospital the day before. He missed a few words here and there, but Kate was steady enough to keep her lips calm and readable so he got the gist of it. When she was done, Clint closed his eyes and sank back into the bed, relief easing the pressure on his chest. Everyone from the building was ok. They’d made it through the invasion safely, and while they were busy cleaning up today, Kate said they were planning to visit tomorrow.

The building was ok too. A few bullet holes, a couple busted doors. Nothing Clint couldn’t fix later. Kate reported that the neighbors were already working on repairs – Simone and the kids were back in their apartment, and the kids were having a blast pretending to be construction workers. But most importantly, Barney… Barney was alive.

He was still unconscious, Kate told Clint; he hadn’t woken up since that heart-stopping moment the day before. The doctors had had to operate to stop the bleeding and repair the damage from the knife, but they were saying that he would pull through without any major complications.

Kate’s driving had gotten them here in time; the docs said that five more minutes, and they might not have been as lucky. Clint had been crushed when she’d left, unsure he’d ever see her again, but Kate had come back. She’d shown up when they needed her most and now…

_My brother’s going to live._

All the stress he was still feeling fell off of him like chains, slipping to the floor and leaving him newly light and unfettered. A single tear appeared on his cheek as he said Kate’s name as a question, not waiting for a response before he said one more word,

“Thanks.”

And fell silent.

They would make it through, he thought. They were bruised and battered and had more holes than they should, but wasn’t that always the case? And like they always did, they would pull through this too. They were the Barton brothers, after all. No matter what, they always had each other.

* * *

The next day, before anyone was up, Clint slid out of the bed and sat himself down in a wheelchair, grumbling all the while but knowing from experience that it was better to be in a chair than to fall somewhere and have to ask someone for help.

Swearing just twice as he maneuvered through the door, Clint made his way through the maze of halls until he was in front of one door in particular. Pushing it open, anxiety grabbed at his heart again at the sight of his brother lying prone on the bed. But the familiar monitor beside the bed was beeping to the beat of Barney’s heart, calming Clint’s knee-jerk reaction to seeing his brother hurt. Rolling to the far side of the bed, Clint reached for his brother’s hand and held it tight, wishing he was awake to give Clint some solid reassurance that he’d be ok. Instead, he settled for watching Barney’s chest rise and fall, his breath a bit labored but still strong.

Clint wasn’t sure he believed that unconscious people could hear the sounds around them. He’d never experienced it himself, at least. Still… aw, what the hell. It couldn’t hurt. Leaning closer, he started to whisper.

“Hey, Barn…”

And that’s where Kate found him when she arrived at the hospital a few hours later, after she wove through a mad circus of staff running around looking for the missing archer. Not wanting to bother Clint, who was recounting his favorite memories of their childhood adventures, she started to walk away only to be drawn back by a sound she hadn’t expected to hear quite yet.

Another deep voice joined Clint’s, making some remark that must have been funny because soon enough both men were chuckling, albeit with a healthy dose of pain tinting the laughs. Peeking around the doorframe, Kate saw Clint’s face and couldn’t hold back a soft smile at the look in his eyes, a look that she could only describe as hope. Hope… and love.

**Author's Note:**

> I read Hawkeye #21 and, well, you know. So when skyfallat221b (spectralarchers on tumblr) asked (read: commanded) me to fix it, I did. Hopefully this helps you get to a little better place. I know writing it made me feel better.
> 
> HOPEFULLY hopefully, I have more precognition than I ever suspected and the real storyline ends up following this.
> 
> Disclaimer: none of these characters are mine. All rights to Marvel. This story is pure fanfic. Anything else that might apply here.
> 
> I hope you enjoyed it!


End file.
